A treasure hunt: If you manage to create _. in nbeta without using _. in the argument(s), in a primitive other than 3!:n, "., and DLL call, we would appreciate hearing about it.
----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Iverson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thursday, February 21, 2008 15:49 Subject: [Jbeta] nbeta available for all platforms To: beta forum <[email protected]> > The nbeta is available for all platforms. > > This beta include a new J Engine that changes the way NaN is > treated. The > next beta will include new Dictionary documentation on NaN. For > now, some > overiew comments. > > Roger started out to make NaN behave 'properly' and went quite a > ways down > this very frustrating road. Eventually it was decided to > completely abandon > this fools errand. Overhead that affected all fp ops (whether > they included > NaN or not) kept increasing. Code got more and more convoluted > as > differences between compilers and hosts continued to surface. > The price to > be paid was high and growing and any supposed benefit was less > and less > tangible. > > The decision was made to favor fast performance and clean, > portable > implementation. And to ignore what happens if there are NaNs. I > summarize > this as gigo (garbage in garbage out). The garbage out depends > on the J > release, the compiler, data sensitive algorithms, the host, and > the phase of > the moon. > > J signals a NaN error if a J primitive would produce a NaN. For > example, _%_ > signals an error. > > The intent is that the only source for NaNs is _. , 3!:n , and > DLL calls and > other mechansims that put external data into J. > > 128!:5 is the only approved and reliable way to detect NaNs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
